Chipset and music production

[Chris V]

Hey guys,

planning to upgrade from my 6600k, z170 (gtx 1070) pc this year.

during work / gaming I get a few hiccups here and there with my dual 1440p monitors, but more importantly I want more speed for making music (plus: stable and silent work + gaming).

 

I have two questions and I'd be super thankful, if you guys could help me out (once more :D)

 

1. Now, I couldnt really find out how important the given chipset is for when you're making music and how much the quality of the board in general really affects making music (latency etc). If yall could help me decide between B450, X470 and X570 - that'd be great. I have the money to buy either, but Im not one keen on wasting money. (or say: Id rather go X570->B450 - in exchange - 3600->3700x). I am keen on good quality though, I dont like spending cash on garbage products / products that dont fit my needs. Prices in my country:

 

- B450: 80-150€: quality seems to be good in general

- X470: 120-180€: same here, though I dont see an upgrade for my use case if the chipset doesnt better the audio quality in any way (say, by improving communication between all the pcs "devices" / components)

- X570: 170(!!)-several hundred: 170 seems to be an amazing deal on a good board right now, BUT: the only benefit - again - would be if the more advanced chipsed improved upon quality in any way. I'd also get pcie gen 4 and better IO. quick and fast usb ports seem to make a lot of sense with the audio interfaces and all. So I was about to buy this, until I started thinking of the fan. I am concerned with its durability in general, and with its noise, as I'll be recording very near to the (new) PC. What are your thoughts?

[bear in mind: 3600 and b450 can be 289€; X570 changes that to a whopping 379€; I'd have no problem putting a 3900x into that board in say maybe 2 years - will a b450 board really be a solid, stable, silent board for that kinda scenario?]

 

2. I have few experiences with different DAW software. I am currently using Studio one 4. I make music quite a bit, although id range the CPU workload in the lower to mid hobby segment - heck, my 6600k is objectively up to the task, I just dont like the minor lags and feeling like Im working at a limit. Making music - you shouldnt be thinking about your cpu usage when youre about to add sth to your song - that kinda kills creativity and fun for me. SO: will most DAWs rather benefit from more cores or top of the line frequency, or both? (like where in some games the 9900k still pulls ahead of the 3700x and 3900x), or am I better off just getting a 6700k for my board for the hyperthreading? (since the security flaws are major, I dont actually wanna spend on a broken cpu generation anymore, though ). Whats your experiences?

 

3. Have any of you benefitted from going SSD->faster M.2, when making music? Is it worth maybe going for X570 and using a quick to react, super fast pcie gen 4 nvme ssd? (probably a lot of cash for basically no noticeable effect for hobby musicians, right?)

 

Thank you guys so much, for some reason I am simply not capable of posting a short question, so thanks a lot for bearing with me haha

Greetings,

Chris

[Enderman]

The board model won't make a difference on latency.

You should be using an audio interface anyway, that's what will determine the latency.

 

DAWs benefit more for core performance (aka intel CPUs) more than number of threads, except for the final export, or if you have like 100 samples playing at a time for some stupid reason.

Any CPU with 8 or more threads will work fine.

 

An NVME ssd won't really make a difference over a regular sata SSD.

[homeap5]

No matter how strange your DAW is, 6600k is more than enough for music production, even if you want to use lot of VSTs and channels.

Chipset has nothing to do with sound integrated card, so no matter what do you choose - it will be irrelevant.

 

What parameters do you use if your 6600k is not enough? Maybe you're trying, like some audiophile maniacs, using preview/play frequency that only bats can hear?

 

Music don't need ultra fast SSD. Take note that even great usb soundcard can work on USB2.0 (even some audio interfaces that can record 8 or more tracks at the same time have usb2.0 interface).

 

[Chris V]

21 minutes ago, Enderman said:

The board model won't make a difference on latency.

You should be using an audio interface anyway, that's what will determine the latency.

 

DAWs benefit more for core performance (aka intel CPUs) more than number of threads, except for the final export, or if you have like 100 samples playing at a time for some stupid reason.

Any CPU with 8 or more threads will work fine.

 

An NVME ssd won't really make a difference over a regular sata SSD.

I figured that what these "audio pros" were writing was probably not correct - at least PC wise.

So say, for gaming and music, a good 8700k deal might be better after all, compared to a 3600.

 

21 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

No matter how strange your DAW is, 6600k is more than enough for music production, even if you want to use lot of VSTs and channels.

Chipset has nothing to do with sound integrated card, so no matter what do you choose - it will be irrelevant.

 

What parameters do you use if your 6600k is not enough? Maybe you're trying, like some audiophile maniacs, using preview/play frequency that only bats can hear?

 

Music don't need ultra fast SSD. Take note that even great usb soundcard can work on USB2.0 (even some audio interfaces that can record 8 or more tracks at the same time have usb2.0 interface).

 

The 6600k is ok, just when I got all sorts of stuff running it kind of gets into stuttering. The DAW sometimes has these weird micro lags, though I think thats related to Studio One 4.

 

First of all, thank you both already for your time and answers - very much appreciated.

Am I right assuming, you'd also be with me to say: go for a great b450 deal?

 

the 3600, 3700x or 8700k for that matter all have an IPC and core count + SMT (HT) advantage over my 6600k.

which one wld u go with? (since the 8700k is still 360€ intel can go and ... you know what haha)

its not that my 6600k is absolutely unbearable or sth - not at all. I just wanna get rid of the occasional lag and make a good decision cpu wise - the 6600k will still be used, but thats another topic.

[Enderman]

4 minutes ago, Chris V said:

So say, for gaming and music, a good 8700k deal might be better after all, compared to a 3600.

Yeah, just look for a used 8700K, you'll pay about the same as a new 3600 and get better performance.

[.Apex.]

53 minutes ago, Chris V said:

1. Now, I couldnt really find out how important the given chipset is for when you're making music and how much the quality of the board in general really affects making music

None at all

53 minutes ago, Chris V said:

2. I have few experiences with different DAW software. I am currently using Studio one 4. I make music quite a bit, although id range the CPU workload in the lower to mid hobby segment - heck, my 6600k is objectively up to the task, I just dont like the minor lags and feeling like Im working at a limit. Making music - you shouldnt be thinking about your cpu usage when youre about to add sth to your song - that kinda kills creativity and fun for me. SO: will most DAWs rather benefit from more cores or top of the line frequency, or both?

DAWs benefit in both frequency and more cores, most DAWs assign each core to a single track, so if you have 4 Tracks, and 4 Cores, each track will get a core, but if you have 8 Tracks, then each core will get 2 Tracks, so higher frequency will help a lot in that regard, though I don't know how Studio One assigns cores

53 minutes ago, Chris V said:

am I better off just getting a 6700k for my board for the hyperthreading?

6th Gen and 7th Gen are still really expensive these days, people are really holding on to them, even though you can buy a new Intel CPU that has better performance for a lower price than what they are selling them

53 minutes ago, Chris V said:

3. Have any of you benefitted from going SSD->faster M.2, when making music? Is it worth maybe going for X570 and using a quick to react, super fast pcie gen 4 nvme ssd? (probably a lot of cash for basically no noticeable effect for hobby musicians, right?)

All the processing is being done through RAM, so SSD's don't make difference in terms of performance other than loading times which is pretty quick on my SATA SSD's, and I doubt an NVME SSD will improve loading times much over SATA SSD's, it's not worth it

43 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

No matter how strange your DAW is, 6600k is more than enough for music production, even if you want to use lot of VSTs and channels. 

my 8700K @ 4.6Ghz is getting hammered

17 minutes ago, Chris V said:

So say, for gaming and music, a good 8700k deal might be better after all, compared to a 3600.

It's unclear at this moment, but generally Intel is more suited for this because of the low RAM latency, but Ryzen 3000 has crazy amounts of cache and that might make a difference, I suggest you wait for DAW benchmarks which should be available next week or something

 

[homeap5]

Can I ask you guys - what frequency and bitrate do you use (for work, not for mixdown)? Because I was using i5 3470 some time ago (before I switch to i7-8700k) and I had no problem with any lags etc. Of course - some VSTs may be very CPU intensive, but that is other subject (how good they're optimized). I'm just wonder - what if you switch to better processor and all other stuff and lags still will be there because of DAW bugs, not processor power.

[Chris V]

2 hours ago, Enderman said:

Yeah, just look for a used 8700K, you'll pay about the same as a new 3600 and get better performance.

so i just checked prices, and bad news

 

people are still asking for 270-320€ around here. Ill have a used product with no warranty and no implied warranty as my contractual partner will be a private individual, thats gonna try to exclude any warranting in the first place and even if he/she didnt: its not realistic to get my money back from a private individual. (in this kind of deal and price range)

 

That makes it a used product, about 150% the price of a new 3600 (209€) with no warranty whatsoever. needs a new board just as well + beefy cooling if its really supposed to show its edge over the 3600 in gaming and (if this is rly the case) in music production. ram prices are low now, around here (that ill only need to buy if I cant overclock mine, which ill see during this summer). The real upside to 8700k is gaming, which i dont do much of anymore anyway. and neither ryzen nor kaby lake refresh will bottleneck my 1070. Im not looking to upgrade the 1070 anytime soon.

plus: if I get tired of the 3600 I can still get up to a (probably) 3900x, whereas with intel ill just be stuck. Even if I'd wanna ditch Ryzen, ill just make it a cheap B450 2200g gaming pc / sell it or whatever. Compatibility will be nice to manouver when changing the rig / selling the rig.

 

hmm...

[Chris V]

2 hours ago, _Syn_ said:

None at all

DAWs benefit in both frequency and more cores, most DAWs assign each core to a single track, so if you have 4 Tracks, and 4 Cores, each track will get a core, but if you have 8 Tracks, then each core will get 2 Tracks, so higher frequency will help a lot in that regard, though I don't know how Studio One assigns cores

6th Gen and 7th Gen are still really expensive these days, people are really holding on to them, even though you can buy a new Intel CPU that has better performance for a lower price than what they are selling them

All the processing is being done through RAM, so SSD's don't make difference in terms of performance other than loading times which is pretty quick on my SATA SSD's, and I doubt an NVME SSD will improve loading times much over SATA SSD's, it's not worth it

my 8700K @ 4.6Ghz is getting hammered

It's unclear at this moment, but generally Intel is more suited for this because of the low RAM latency, but Ryzen 3000 has crazy amounts of cache and that might make a difference, I suggest you wait for DAW benchmarks which should be available next week or something

 

Thank you for that insight regarding how DAWs deal with tracks and cores. Since any ryzen 3000 chip has an IPC improvement and better single core performance than my 6600k its just a matter of: invest into higher frequ on the worse, older 14nm++++ platform /// invest into higher core count on the better platform, that basically only gets beaten in gaming here and there by the 9900k. (ofc the 8700k pulls ahead in some titles, but not often enough so that I'd say it matters)

 

I think Ive kinda answered to myself here that Im leaning towards ryzen I guess. I do have good quality ram, but its only clocked at 2133 Mhz. However I have read that people easily get it up to 3000 Mhz. Its 16 gigs. If its not possible, then ill just spend 80-90€ and get 3000-3200 mhz ram and try to oc it a tad. 32 GB will always be an option, and Ill probably not need that much of ram.

 

Ok so I misunderstood the part that storage and RAM play while using a DAW I guess. I thought that you know, for any effect, instrument or whatever else I try to pull from the library that itd have to communicate that with the SSD. So I thought that latency and chipset communication (much rather than bandwidth) would improve that. But now thinking about it, it doesnt make sense at all. The program is already running, being used up front.

 

I guess I'll have to wait and see what the consensus is when it comes to the cache. I'd be willing to go 3900x if thats like crazy performance boost for my use case. I honestly dont care about gaming that much and I'm not looking to squeeze every last fps out of some crazy 1500€ GPU. If league, diablo and maybe the occasional HOI / Minecraft run at 1440p at 144hz - Im fine, and that includes me dropping down on some settings if necessary. The 6600k just started to get annoying hiccups when alt tabbing or doing much other stuff while gaming etc. etc.

 

So am I right "extracting" from what you said in the very last sentence: When it came to Intel vs Zen1, Intel had the upper hand in music production?

[Chris V]

2 hours ago, homeap5 said:

Can I ask you guys - what frequency and bitrate do you use (for work, not for mixdown)? Because I was using i5 3470 some time ago (before I switch to i7-8700k) and I had no problem with any lags etc. Of course - some VSTs may be very CPU intensive, but that is other subject (how good they're optimized). I'm just wonder - what if you switch to better processor and all other stuff and lags still will be there because of DAW bugs, not processor power.

thats a good question, or a good general idea to tell people that are right on the brink of buying some product - so thank you for that already.

Its exactly why I asked for peoples opinion, that used more than 1 or 2 DAWs in their days. So I cant really answer this question I guess. Ill just upgrade anyway and I just want the upgrade to be the one that fits music making well, as I dont wanna be disappointed later on. I need the latter and proper future proof multi tasking / gaming, without lags and weird mouse stuttering when using 2x 1440p displays.

 

I think I am set to 48kHz and 24 Bit if Im not mistaken. (that is sample rate and bit depth, right? - I am learning all these things just now, but law is keeping me busy lol)

[homeap5]

So you're ok. That is maximum you need. In fact 44100 @ 16 bit will be the same good and can improve performance. Later, if you want, you can mix down using 24 bits for final postprocessing purposes. But not because you'll hear any difference, but because it can reduce quality loss when your final mix will be not normalized.

[.Apex.]

8 hours ago, Chris V said:

Ok so I misunderstood the part that storage and RAM play while using a DAW I guess. I thought that you know, for any effect, instrument or whatever else I try to pull from the library that itd have to communicate that with the SSD.

Loading from library does take from the SSD, but after it's loaded the SSD has no effect on performance, it's all in RAM
Chipsets won't improve SSD latency though, differences might be in nanoseconds which is impossible for you to notice and I don't think it's even measurable with software
 

8 hours ago, Chris V said:

guess I'll have to wait and see what the consensus is when it comes to the cache.

Oh I just checked, the DAW benches just released today
http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/07/12/amd-ryzen-3600-3700x-3900x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/

 

Seems like Intel is still on top, the 9700K is getting wiped by the 3700X because it has no hyper threading, but the 9900K is wiping the 3700X considering they have the same amount of cores/threads, I suggest you stay away from the 9700K or any CPU with no hyper threading for that matter

 

Quote

According to this benchmark, the 8700K is way ahead of the 9700K, it's ahead by 21%, and if you compare the 3700X with the 9700K (in previous benchmark), the 3700X is ahead by 22%, that would mean that the 3700X would match the 8700K, and the 3700X is performing the same as a 2700X, which is disappointing considering Ryzen got a huge IPC uplift and it's beating Intel's 5Ghz Single Core performance, not sure what's the issue here, but DAW's are still not optimized for Ryzen and no one is bothering with that just yet, or it could be that Ryzen's higher memory latency is heavily affecting it in this kind of workload, which is what I think

I also experienced that the 2700X doesn't handle Low Buffer size well, I have no clue if they fixed that with the 3700X but I wouldn't risk it, Ryzen is not ready yet for music production in my opinion, we're stuck with Intel and their crazy prices

[Chris V]

On 7/12/2019 at 8:50 PM, _Syn_ said:

Loading from library does take from the SSD, but after it's loaded the SSD has no effect on performance, it's all in RAM
Chipsets won't improve SSD latency though, differences might be in nanoseconds which is impossible for you to notice and I don't think it's even measurable with software
 

Oh I just checked, the DAW benches just released today
http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/07/12/amd-ryzen-3600-3700x-3900x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/

 

Seems like Intel is still on top, the 9700K is getting wiped by the 3700X because it has no hyper threading, but the 9900K is wiping the 3700X considering they have the same amount of cores/threads, I suggest you stay away from the 9700K or any CPU with no hyper threading for that matter

 

According to this benchmark, the 8700K is way ahead of the 9700K, it's ahead by 21%, and if you compare the 3700X with the 9700K (in previous benchmark), the 3700X is ahead by 22%, that would mean that the 3700X would match the 8700K, and the 3700X is performing the same as a 2700X, which is disappointing considering Ryzen got a huge IPC uplift and it's beating Intel's 5Ghz Single Core performance, not sure what's the issue here, but DAW's are still not optimized for Ryzen and no one is bothering with that just yet, or it could be that Ryzen's higher memory latency is heavily affecting it in this kind of workload, which is what I think

I also experienced that the 2700X doesn't handle Low Buffer size well, I have no clue if they fixed that with the 3700X but I wouldn't risk it, Ryzen is not ready yet for music production in my opinion, we're stuck with Intel and their crazy prices

hey there

thank you for introducing me to all these factors.

Now, while I dont yet understand all these measurements fully (and some of them not at all) - it seems like the 3900x is far superior to the 9900k at the same price (or here in Austria: for less).

 

I'd never go for a 9700k for said reason (especially since probably the only reason I am personally struggling with the 6600k is the lack of its HT).

 

What do you think of an x470 mini itx 3900x build with quick ram and all. cant be that inferior in any way to a 9900k right? (except for some games maybe, but im sitting at 1440p with a 1070 anyways, so ...)

 

I guess the core of what I am asking is. As a novice in both music production and computing - these charts:

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2019/07/12/amd-ryzen-3600-3700x-3900x-dawbench-tested-3-is-it-the-magic-number/

make it seem to me like the 3900x is the best consumer cpu choice for music making, and comes with the more valuable platform and features in comparison to the 9900k. Its immense amount of cores would also make it a long term beast for any computing tasks I could think of doing.

Do the weaknesses of the Ryzen platform - that are probably caused by lack of optimization - in any way majorly make it a no go when compared to a 9900k?

 

i know im kinda zig zag questioning you, thanks for bearing with me !! greatly appreciate getting to know these benchmarks and all, since that was exactly what I couldnt really find online on my own!

[.Apex.]

2 hours ago, Chris V said:

What do you think of an x470 mini itx 3900x build with quick ram and all. cant be that inferior in any way to a 9900k right?

2 hours ago, Chris V said:

Do the weaknesses of the Ryzen platform - that are probably caused by lack of optimization - in any way majorly make it a no go when compared to a 9900k?

In this case I cannot recommend you a 9900K, if you're gonna spend that much money I would advise you to go with the 3900X, it has so many extra cores and threads that the optimization doesn't even matter, at worst you'll probably match the 9900K in DAW workloads, and crush it in everything else (productivity workloads)

As for the 3700X vs 8700K, I was going back and forth thinking about it, and I think you should go with Ryzen regardless, it's pretty difficult to recommend an Intel CPU right now, Z370/Z390 is most likely a dead platform, I don't think Intel will keep supporting it, while with AM4 there's still one generation of CPU's left and it could be big